Cats vs. Dogs
Credit: Norman Jung/Cartoonstock
Today's blog post is for anyone currently considering getting a pet. Or a friend for their current pet. It might also be of interest to people who spend their days wistfully daydreaming about all the furry friends they would adopt if they had the time, space, money or a partner that wasn't allergic to everything. This post should at least make them feel better about their pet-deficient lives.
It will not be of any interest to those who have just figured out that their cat's recent weight gain has less to do with laying into the dinner of the tomcat next door and more to do with being laid on by said cat. Their opportunity to make sensible pet decisions is now over and they are best off just sourcing an extra-large cardboard box and preparing themselves emotionally for the impending destruction of their lounge suite.*
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you're probably already thinking about the environmental impact of getting a pet and trying to work out what the best option would be. Well, that's easy. Don't get one.
Actually, maintaining your current pet-free lifestyle is the second-best option. The best would be to take up restorative gardening as a hobby and turn your backyard into the local bird and insect equivalent of a pilgrimage to Mecca.
I appreciate that this is not a feasible option for anyone living in an apartment. And many people reading this may have already made the environmentally preferable decision to adopt a rescue animal rather than bring another mini emitter into the world, so now think it's grossly unfair of me to recommend not getting one. That's understandable. For those people, I would highly recommend a rabbit. They're enthusiastic about veganism and surprisingly toilet trainable.
I'm going to assume most readers are unhappy with these options. The title does say Dogs vs. Cats, which means anyone with enough patience to read this far must be quite eager to have someone on the internet reassure them that they can still be an environmentalist if they own a pet. Specifically, a dog or a cat as those are normal pets owned by normal people and anyone reading this is certainly a normal person. (Or at least they would like to appear that way in front of their normal friends.)
You will regret not opting for the bunny, but if you really insist on one of those other ones, I will start by saying that dogs are more like rabbits than cats. At least they can be. Depending on what you feed them.
At this point, we all know that halting global warming would be much easier if everyone stopped eating meat. Lucky for environmentalist dog lovers, canines are quite a bit more open to vegan diets than cats are as they are natural omnivores. They are certainly more open to them than most humans. Dogs might be used to eating high-meat diets, but (like humans) they benefit from plant diversity and their tastebuds will quickly adjust. In fact, dogs tend to adopt much better to vegan diets than humans do. This is partly because they haven't figured out UberEATS and partly because they have so few taste receptors that they don't really know what they're eating. If you slowly blend brown rice, beans, legumes and veggies into their dinner while phasing out the meat, they'll barely notice.**
Having spent ten thousand odd years with humans, the more intelligent dogs have figured out that getting fed is a luxury not to be taken lightly and will happily consent to eating anything you give them. After all, for most dogs throughout history, their central diet has less resembled that of their wolf ancestor and more like whatever bones, grains, beans and veggies they could scrounge from their human cave-mates. I.e. Leftovers.
It is highly unlikely that the first pet owners finished off the boiled cabbage themselves and threw the steak to the dogs, yet we've recently come to believe (roughly around the same time dog food mass marketing began) that dogs should all be on grain-free keto diets. Don’t get me wrong, dogs love meat. If you ask any of them, they will tell you that it is their natural diet. As will every keto-obsessed human. (Unfortunately for humans, most health researchers, cardiologists and nutritionists disagree.) Although dogs and humans wish it were so, ‘most tasty’ doesn’t translate to ‘most healthy’. If it did, I would be able to replace all of my meals with Ben & Jerry’s Non-dairy Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice cream.
Alas, salad must occasionally be eaten instead.
Avoiding plants is terrible for long-term human health (and catastrophic for the planet), so why would it be a good idea for the dogs that have been eating alongside us for several millennia?
I know a lot of people are going to be outraged by suggesting a dog can be vegan, but my medium-sized (23 kilo) canine housemate has been vegan since she was a puppy and is in perfect health. Well, apart from the psychological trauma of having endured twelve years of sporadic thunderstorms and the weekly emergence of the vacuum cleaner.
Cats are a different story. They are carnivores and living around humans hasn't made an ounce of difference. Chiefly because they are not people pleases like their shameless, slobbering frenemies.
Having spent many thousands of years trailing around after humans, dogs have adapted to human-like diets. Cats have also spent many millennia living among humans but, unlike dogs, have come to the logical conclusion that nobody can be trusted, and they are better off sourcing their own meals. Most will tolerate the premium smoked salmon provided by their human attendants but view it strictly as a side dish. They will always prefer to obtain their main course from the delivered fresh every day self-serve deli that is their local bird and rodent population.
(NB. There are vegan cat food options, but I don't have a senior cat that I can use to demonstrate the efficacy of these options. If anyone does have one that they can offer up as subjective evidence, I would be delighted to hear from you.)
Cat owners may consider themselves staunch environmentalists because their lightweight kitty eats much less than their neighbour's obese Labrador, but if they let Pussy de Lightfoot out at night, they lose their advantage. Miss de Lightfoot hasn't just popped out for a moonlit stroll through the back garden. She's hunting. That's what they do. Even if she ate all of her dinner and is vehemently opposed to late-night snacking, she still intends to do a spot of killing. Just for fun. She may have spent the day masquerading as an angelic white furball curled up on someone's keyboard but, when she goes out, that precious pussycat transforms into a homicidal psychopath that takes pleasure in subjecting the native wildlife population to a nightly reign of terror.
If cat humans want to be good environmentalists, the first thing they must do is feign the sudden onset of deafness whenever their fluffy overlords demand to be let outside.
In theory, dogs are better environmentalists than cats when outside because they have to be on a lead. In theory. They are not so good if the person responsible for the dog has opted to purchase a house with a three-acre yard that they can send the dog out to in lieu of having to take it for a walk. That three acres was most likely once forest or a field of wild grasses that have been clearcut for the sole purpose of allowing a dog to walk two metres away from its bed on the verandah whenever it wants to relieve itself.
Dogs don't need an enormous back lawn (and neither do humans). That space is better returned to the wildlife that is supposed to live there. What dogs do need are human housemates that are committed to taking them for a walk every day. I know a lot of people don't do that, but you really are supposed to. That is the rule when you get a dog. They are not supposed to stay in bed for 23 hours a day, even if they tell you otherwise. They should at least go for a walk around the block.
Where dog walking becomes an environmental problem is when people feel they need to drive their dogs several kilometres in order for them to get some exercise. Unless you live somewhere paddock-free, footpath-free and where your driveway leads directly onto a major freeway, there is really no reason why you can't find somewhere local to walk Signor Pant-a-Lot.***
If there is an amazing dog park, off-leash beach, or dog-friendly café three suburbs over, that should be the place any non-local dogs go to for a rare treat. On their birthday, for example. Or instead of the kangaroo leg they normally get for Christmas. It doesn't have to be an every single weekend thing. A dog will be happy enough just to be taken out the front door every afternoon, and if a trip in the car is a little less frequent, they will enjoy it even more when it does happen (as will their humans).
A locally walked, brown rice-lentil-and-vegetable eating dog without a three-acre toilet is going to be better for the environment than a meat-eating, night-strolling cat. Even a purely indoor cat is helping humans slowly decimate global fish populations.
Unfortunately, most dogs are overweight, sedentary, backyard dwelling meat eaters, which makes them a far worse environmental disaster. They don't have to be climate killers but that depends less on them and more on their humans, and if said human can't manage to reduce their own meat intake or maintain a regular exercise routine, it is unlikely they are going to be boasting to their friends about their climate hero canine.
If you are already a quiet environmentalist, have read a number of books and studies about vegan dogs, trialled several recipes on your oblivious partner, and have incorporated a walk around your neighbourhood into your daily routine, you are ready to head down to the local dog pound. (Warning: The cats will all be much cuter, so try not to make eye contact.) For everybody else, have you considered getting a rabbit?
The Quiet Environmentalist FURTHER READING
What’s on the menu? For cats, just about everything. (anthropocenemagazine.org)
Won’t my cat get bored if I keep it inside? Here's how to ensure it's happy (theconversation.com)
Vegan versus meat-based dog food: Guardian-reported indicators of health | PLOS ONE
Plant-based (vegan) diets for pets: A survey of pet owner attitudes and feeding practices | PLOS ONE
Vegan Dog Food - Pet Shop Direct
Simple Little Vegan Dog Book eBook : Rivera, Michelle: Amazon.com.au: Books
The Plant-Based Dog Food Revolution - With 50 Recipes by Mimi Kirk | 9781682682715 | Booktopia
*It is also not for anyone looking for blog posts speculating on who would win a cage fight between beloved pets. Although the title is Dogs vs. Cats, I am strictly referring to how they compare as carbon emitters. This is an environmental blog, after all. I should really have called the blog post Are cats better for the environment than dogs? to avoid confusion, but this would have only led readers to assume that I was going to provide a useful and unambiguous answer, which I have no intention of doing. It would also have involved turning the blog title into a question, which is unacceptable. Being manipulated into reading unhelpful articles because their titles are presented as intriguing questions is on my list of Top 100 Things I Dislike Most about the Anthropocene, and I refuse to inflict that on sensible readers. By calling it Dogs vs. Cats, I can rest assured that few people will click on this link (most will be too busy reading Is This Killer Living in Your Fridge? articles), those that do will have low expectations, and anyone that is hoping to learn about training domestic animals in mixed martial arts may end up purchasing some native shrubs instead.
**I would also highly recommend getting a vegan kibble brand so you are sure your dog doesn't miss any micronutrients they might get from meat, such as the amino acid, taurine, and vitamin B12. I have added some vegan dog food links to the Further Reading section as well as some studies about nutrition and pet food diets. The vegan dog I live with has kibble for breakfast and a pre-prepared home-cooked dinner, and this works well. She has made it very clear that she prefers dinner, but also appreciates that every dog she knew in her youth is overweight, losing their vision, can no longer take long walks, has diabetes, is having tumours removed, or is dead. She doesn't want to end up like that, so she has agreed to continue to tolerate the pea protein kibble breakfast even though I have continually refused to eat boiled kale for breakfast every morning in solidarity. She has also made it clear that she has not given up on the dream of one day catching and eating a cat. I have agreed to this condition, not because I dislike cats, but because she has proved, through twelve years of trying, that she is perfectly incapable of catching one. (Don't tell her I said that.)
***It is also acceptable to not walk Signor Pant-a-Lot locally if you are actually not allowed pets in your apartment building and can only take him out for a walk if you smuggle him down to the underground carpark in a stroller. In this case, I would recommend that you find the nearest available parking spot and disembark there. It's also worth noting that clandestine operations and fossil-fuelled dog walks would not be necessary if you had opted for a rabbit.
Published 04 August 2024
